67. Chapter 60
Chapter 60
Raven
D own I walked through narrow, twisting tunnels. A fork on the left went to the Emperor’s Dungeon, but I passed it and continued down. If I lost my way, I’d become one of the dried-out skeletons that littered the halls, remnants of prisoners who tried to escape. But the green Threads guided me. Those leading to Anu’s pit were brightest. He wanted me to come.
Of course I do. There was no mistaking his eagerness.
I am not coming to Bond. I probably shouldn’t have told him, but I sensed that he already knew. His influence coiled around my every thought and wish and desire, as it always had. All my life, I’d thought my father’s values guided me, but it was Anu. Hiding in the background, nurturing my hatred, nudging me towards the choices that served him.
Yes. To bring us to this moment. You cannot imagine how long I’ve waited.
The last dragon died a thousand cycles ago and you were killed long before that. I don’t have to imagine. It was strange but somehow comforting to chat with him without reverence or fear, like it made us equals.
We are equals. You are my Chosen.
Not yet.
The tunnels tightened until I scraped my skin as I passed through them. The air here was stagnant and tasted of wet moss and ancient rot. Good thing tight spaces never bothered me. What made my heart race was the prospect of returning to that cavern.
I hadn’t been back there since my father died. Eymen never allowed it. What would it feel like to stand there again, twenty cycles after that fateful day? What would it feel like to kill the being who saved my life?
Come and see, Anu’s voice taunted. It contained no fear.
Was I playing right into his hands? I didn’t even have a plan to kill him beyond just climb down and stab him with my daggers. And yet I had to try.
The tunnel twisted one last time and then opened up into the cavern. It wasn’t dim, as in my memory. It was flooded with green light. When I opened my eyes, the brightness persisted, blinding and invasive. I couldn’t escape it.
It wasn’t the only difference. Where once the stone below my feet had been smooth, now it was cracked. The crack began at the pit and snaked outward, widening as it went. Even the ceiling above my head was cracked. The whole foundation would soon collapse in on itself.
The familiar deep voice boomed in my mind. Once, it had offered a quiet thread of advice. Now, my insides shuddered at the power of its touch. It was so big inside me, it hurt. How had I ever found it comforting?
Come to me, Anu boomed.
There was a rope already dangling into the pit.
Tanead, I realized. My Sight had shown him to me. I’d felt his regret as if it were my own. It was my own. But not for much longer. Soon, I’d make it right.
You have no need of rope, my little bird. Step out and fly.
I gulped back bile. I was living inside my nightmare. The memory of my own scream made my ears ache. I felt as helpless and small as a child again, frozen on the edge of the abyss. I clutched my own chest in lieu of a stuffed animal. I shuddered, my skin coated in sweat.
Now!
I tried to disobey. To keep my feet steady on the edge. I intended to slowly lower myself down, hand by hand, the descent in my control.
But Anu would not allow it. His power seized hold of me and tugged, pulling my strings like a puppet. One leg kicked out and I fell forward until my foot caught me. Then, the other. The Ravager marched me forward towards the edge of the pit.
Terror flooded me, overriding all other senses and thoughts. Tears poured down my cheeks. I heard the thin thread of my own voice, begging. My father’s face flashed before my eyes.
“Shall we play a game? Shall we see if we can spin around together? Shall we get really dizzy like we used to in the wildflower field?” he said.
No!
Calm down, child. Soon there will be nothing to fear.
How had this cruel power pretended kindness for so long? His eagerness was all I felt from him now. My legs took another step. And then, the last step.
I clamped my lips shut and refused to scream. My nightmares will be quiet from now on, I thought as I tipped forward into the pit.
I expected to plummet. I almost welcomed the death I’d find at the bottom.
But Anu had not lied to me. I flew.
Gently, my body drifted through the thick, green air. I touched down lightly on my feet and found I could move my body freely again.
The terror washed away. My mind focused only on what I must do.
The pit of today was not like in my memory. The soft golden light that leaked through the cracks in the stone floor had been overcome by the blinding green. The light was so bright and so thick that I couldn’t see anything until it contracted, as if Anu pulled it back inside himself to allow me to see.
The egg was gone. In its place, a living dragon fixed me with his stare.
He was smaller than an alwashi but larger than a man. Light poured from his eyes as if they were each a sun. Instinctively, I avoided looking into them. I looked instead at his body, which was black as dragonstone. His scales gleamed, each one pointed, sharp and hard. His wings were half-tucked. Perhaps the pit was too tight for him to spread them all the way. Behind him, his tail thumped the ground distractedly. It was covered in spikes, each sharp enough to impale.
I swallowed.
Touch me, Anu commanded. The voice thundered through me, so loud it would’ve punctured my eardrums if the sound were real. But it was only inside my mind.
A little giggle, like the frayed nerves of a little girl, answered. Mean shouting, she said, and I realized it was not another consciousness speaking but my own. A part of my mind had reverted into the little girl who had come here before.
Touch me!
He’d said it back then, too. Suddenly I knew that.
Anu chuckled. Touch me and you will know everything.
Nausea overtook me and I took a step back. I put a steadying hand on the wall. Inside my mind, a little girl covered her ears and closed her eyes, curling into a little ball. Her hands were bloody; they smeared red across her face.
“I know everything I need to know. You are the Ravager. If you rise, you will destroy this world.” I shouted, so as to seem bold to myself. All I wanted was to climb back up and out of the suffocating grasp of the thickened air and the menacing cackle that excavated my mind as if all corners and secrets were open to it.
It is my world to burn.
I clasped my hands together and squeezed until my fingers hurt, for I feared that he might have some means of making me obey him. It had been a mistake to come here. To think I could fight an evil this vast when his hooks were so deep in me already. All he had to do was touch me and the world would end. “I will not help you.”
Anu laughed. There was no mirth in it, only cruelty deeper than any human could possess. It is too late to refuse.
I saw myself as a child again, dirty and alone. Saw myself hugging him, my bloodied hands wrapped around his shell as my tears leaked onto him. The light beneath each scale on the shell grew brighter with each tear I shed.
You see? I Chose you already. Touch me and cement the Bond. Touch me and I’m yours.
I drew my daggers. They sang free, the sound bolstering my courage. “No.”
I prepared for him to charge me. But he stayed still. Perhaps he needed me to Choose him. Perhaps the Bond could not be forced.
It meant there was still a chance.
I launched towards him, my feet agile on the jagged stone floor. I calculated my approach carefully. I could not risk my skin contacting him rather than my daggers.
Anu’s tail swept out and I jumped over the spikes that sought to knock me down. An agitated growl scraped from his throat like rusted metal.
I saw my first opening—a scaleless patch on the back of his neck. I thrust towards it but Anu turned and the dagger hit scale instead. The tip shattered, the impact sending a shock back up through my arm.
Damn it. Anu’s wings opened and I dropped to escape their touch. My skin tore as I rolled across the jagged floor.
Stop this.
I stood back up and faced him anew, my eyes seeking other vulnerable targets. The bottom of his stomach, maybe, or his eyes. Yes, his eyes. I launched towards him again, but my feet froze mid-step. My upper body kept moving, tipping forward. I tried to raise my arms to protect my face, but I couldn’t. I could certainly feel it when my nose hit the stone, though. I could hear the crack of cartilage snapping. Could taste the iron that flooded my mouth.
I sure hoped it wasn’t just my blood he needed, because I was giving it to him in spades.
To deny me is a mistake! I will rise with or without you. But if you Bond me, your wishes will become my wishes. Your dreams will become my dreams. I will give you the power to defeat your enemies. The Havards will drown in fire. Your name will make men bow and sing praise. Isn’t that what you always wanted?
He knew me too well for me to just say no. “Not anymore,” I spat instead.
He released my muscles and I sat up. I hadn’t dropped either of my daggers, thank the gods. I didn’t know what I’d do if they fell into the Crust.
Fool yourself if you wish, but you will not fool me. I know what you want, little bird. It’s why I Chose you.
Emotions hit me. I could not differentiate his powerful surges of feeling from my own. His hatred was so familiar. I didn’t even know which of us it belonged to.
I saw Anu’s memories as if I’d lived them myself. The dragon-gods had betrayed him. Turned his body to stone and sent his soul back the Crust. He remembered the moment of dying. They’d surrounded him, poured fire on him while Kutha breathed fire down his throat, pouring it into his very being. Their humans had pierced his organs with dragonstone blades like I held in my hand. His scream had shaken the world.
They’d ensured he could never be reborn. But he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even sleeping. He simmered and seethed below the surface. Until one came along who could hear his call.
Calathan the Conqueror.
I offered him power and I offer it to you now, Raven Rosa. Will you take it and claim all you’ve ever dreamed of?
The vision changed. Now, I saw the future rather than the past. I saw Anu rising up from beneath the palace, burning and eating, growing and decimating. This place would become a palace of corpses.
You can keep your abomination, Anu promised me. I know you’ve grown fond of him. I will give him to you as a pet.
I saw Caelan dressed as a jester, lying on the floor beneath my foot. I held his leash tightly. He wore the face of a man utterly defeated. I’d seen that face before, in the last memory I had of my father.
But it was nothing compared to the horror of my own face.
I looked at myself in the vision, expecting to see cold sadism in a stony expression. Or perhaps I’d look triumphant. Or regal, like an empress.
I did not expect to see my mouth slightly open in a laugh, drool leaking from the corner of my lips. My eyes glowed brighter than ever but behind the green, there was only emptiness. I was a doll on an invisible leash. The mark of my puppeteer was the color of my eyes.
They killed you, Raven. They threw a little brown-eyed girl into my pit and I saved your life. You were reborn as mine .
I saw a woman giving birth to a child in a prison cell. The baby screamed as she immolated. The palace shook. Far below her, the quaking ripped a tear in the Crust. Kutha’s egg, which lay below the Palace of the Suns, dropped into it and was lost. The Father’s egg rolled along the chasm until it took its place. The Father was Master of the Crust, after all.
I saw Anu watching the palace above. Listening. Wielding the subtle threads of his small influence. There were many who might have been his Chosen, but he Chose me.
I felt sick.
We will rise together and take our vengeance as one. You think I put your hatred in you, but you’re wrong. I Chose you because I saw your capacity to hate already matched my own. Just touch me, Raven. Let me taste your blood and the end will begin.
My head spun. My mind was a marble being shaken until it shattered. I felt not quite sane.
That was the most disturbing thing about the image I’d seen of my future self. That woman had gone mad.
All those who Bonded Anu went insane, I remembered. There was no mortal mind strong enough to withstand the power of the mind before me. He shuffled forward. His eyes pierced me.
Look, look, urged the hook he had in me.
“No,” I said. I adjusted my grip on my daggers and readied myself to charge again.
Don’t bother. Tell yourself the truth about why you came here. You want me.
“I’ll never Choose you,” I said, brave, though my voice shook.
I steeled myself as awareness of what I must do settled in me like a feather coming to rest. I’d considered it, of course, but I’d hoped to find another way. I shielded the thoughts as best I could as Anu began to pace before me, his fury rising. It pulsed beneath my skin as if it were my own.
You are nothing without me, Raven. Even your name is only a flag flown over your father’s memory. You would turn your back on all you are? You would turn your back on ME?! The voice had risen in volume until it banged around my mind.
“I would do anything to stop you. Give up anything. I’ve seen something of this world, now. Seen some good in the people in it.” Caelan’s face flashed across my mind, followed by Baris’ and Tanead’s. “I don’t want it to burn.”
I raised a dagger to my neck, the motion swift and true. I had to make the cut before Anu realized what I intended, and I did. But the metal collar Caelan had given me collided with the blade, turning it slightly from its intended path. I missed the largest blood vessel in my neck but slashed the skin just beside it. Blood spurted out in waves. I dropped to my knees, the daggers falling from my hands.
Anu roared. His wings flew out wide and he leaned back on his haunches, preparing to launch himself forward.
“No!” I flung out my hand in a stopping gesture. It was automatic. Probably the stupidest thing I could do, offering him my bloodied hand.
But Anu froze. Both feet were off the ground, his wings spread, but he’d stopped moving forward as if the very air around him had thickened.
Could I freeze him as he could freeze me?
He roared in my mind as a new kind of power pulsed beneath my skin. It was not the sick, intrusive power of the god. It was a power of my own. The power to say no.
Suddenly the words of the prophecy crashed into my mind, the seer’s voice offering a startling revelation.
The Ravager’s servant was called the Arbiter of the Reckoning.
The Arbiter.
What does an arbiter do? She decides.
“Can I…choose if you win or lose?” I asked, though I didn’t expect Anu to answer me.
He didn’t. Instead, his presence swelled in my mind until my hold on my power over him became tenuous.
You will obey me!
“I will not,” I croaked. I was already losing strength, my life force leaking down my tunic.
I searched the ground for my daggers. I found one—the whole one. Thanking the gods and praying for enough time, I jolted to my feet and raised it, intending to pierce Anu through the eye. In the vision I’d seen of his first death, the humans fought him with dragonstone blades. Maybe, just maybe, my little dagger would be enough.
Anu’s roar grew until I felt as if my mind might crack open. All thought, obliterated. Green light flowed out of him to flood the cavern until it was too bright to see. I’d have to just hope my aim was true. Prayers were the only thoughts left to me as I brought my dagger down.
Anu’s tendrils of influence squeezed my mind, seeking to break my control. If pain told me I was alive, then I was more alive than I had ever been. So alive that it was about to kill me. Anu and I fought a battle for control of my body, and I was going to lose.
My dagger met resistance—something soft. I shoved harder into what I hoped was his eye. But suddenly there was nothing there. The dagger kept traveling, cutting empty air. Anu had broken my hold and moved from my dagger’s path. It was too bright to see where he’d gone. In fact, I might be blind—a fact that would worry me if I had more than a few moments left to live.
There was nothing more I could do than what I’d already done. Stumbling around blind would only hurt my cause. The Ravager would not have his Rider. It had to be enough.
I felt a sudden, desperate desire to get out of here. To escape this hellhole and breathe real air before I died.
I sheathed the dagger and felt along the wall for the dangling rope. I began to climb.
One hand, one foot.
Blood ran down my neck and I welcomed the weakness that came as it flowed out. Tears ran down my cheeks and I did not wipe them. I blinked them away and climbed, wishing only to die somewhere he could not touch me.
My fingers scraped the floor above the pit. I gasped in the thin cavern air as I pulled myself out and rolled onto my back, catching my breath.
A chuckle sounded and I assumed it was Anu. But wait, the voice was not as deep as his.
I opened my eyes and I could see.
A pair of pale blue eyes leered over me. Had they always had that tinge of green in them? It must be the cavern’s light changing their color. The crown prince’s reddish hair draped before his face. A wide grin split his thin lips.
Dread would have settled in my stomach if it were not already there.
“Well, well, what do we have here?”
“Looks like your brother’s whore,” supplied his goon, Aagha, who was with him.
“And she’s been in the pit. Did Caelan tell you this was here?” Amon asked.
“Caelan has no idea this is here.” My voice was hoarse, probably because my throat was half-slashed open.
“The demon, then,” Amon said.
“Do you know where he is? I’d like to say goodbye.” Charge him with the responsibility for killing Anu, more like.
Amon smiled broadly. “As a matter of fact, I helped him escape. I regret it already, though. It isn’t good for me to let my table lie empty for too long.”
Tingles of warning shot through my arms. I didn’t think it was Amon’s threat of torture that did it. Why had he helped Tanead escape? And why had he told me about his crime? That did not bode well. Then again, maybe he ascertained that I might die any moment.
“What do you know of the pit?” Amon asked me.
“Only death awaits inside.”
“Funny, as you just climbed out of it alive.”
I laughed bitterly. “Twice.”
Amon stepped forward, his eyes hungry. The pit yawned behind me. I would not return alive from it a third time—not with my right mind.
“Well, then. Let’s make sure to keep you alive, Raven Rosa. There’s always lucky number three.” The crown prince smiled. He was all teeth as Aagha tackled me, wrenching my dagger from my belt.